It has heretofore been known to use an interlayer inhibiting effect as a means of improving the color reproducibility of color photographic light-sensitive materials. Taking color negative light-sensitive material as an example, the color development of a red-sensitive layer upon exposure to white light can be inhibited as compared with that upon exposure to red light by allowing a green-sensitive layer to give an effect of inhibiting development to a red-sensitive layer. In the color negative paper system, gradation is balanced such that the exposure to white light is reproduced in gray on a color print. Therefore, the foregoing interlayer effect allows the development of a higher density cyan color upon exposure to red light than upon exposure to gray. As a result, it is made possible to provide reproduction of red with a reduced cyan development and a higher saturation on the print. Similarly, the development inhibiting effect given by the red-sensitive layer to the green-sensitive layer provides reproduction of green with a high saturation.
As a method for enhancing the interlayer effect there has been known a method which comprises the use of iodine ions released from a silver halide emulsion during development. In this method, the silver iodide content of the layer which provides an interlayer effect is raised while that of the layer which is given an interlayer effect is reduced. Another method for enhancing the interlayer effect is to incorporate in the interlayer effect-providing layer a coupler which reacts with an oxidation product of a developing agent in a paraphenylenediamine color developer to release a development inhibitor as disclosed in JP-A-50-2537 (The term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application") (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 3,990,899). A further method for enhancing the interlayer effect is a so-called automatic masking which comprises adding a colored coupler to a colorless coupler to mask undesirable absorption by dyes developed from the colorless coupler. By increasing the amount of the colored coupler, this method makes it possible to provide masking more than for undesirable absorption by the colorless coupler and hence give the same effect as the interlayer effect.
These methods are disadvantageous in that when the saturation of primary colors, i.e., red, green and blue are raised, the hue of from yellow to green of a cyanish tint is not faithful. In order to solve this problem, an approach has been proposed as disclosed in JP-A-61-34541 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,705,744). In accordance with this proposal, a sharp and faithful color reproduction is attained by the use of a silver halide color photographic material comprising a support having provided thereon at least one blue-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer containing a yellow color coupler, at least one green-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer containing a magenta color coupler, and at least one red-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer containing a cyan color coupler, wherein the weight-averaged wavelength of sensitivity (.lambda..sub.G) in the spectral sensitivity distribution of said at least one green-sensitive layer is in the range of not lower than 520 nm to not higher than 580 nm and the weight-averaged wavelength (.lambda..sub.-R) in the distribution of the magnitude of the interlayer effect which said at least one cyan color-forming red-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer is given by other layers at a wavelength of 500 nm to 600 nm is in the range of higher than 500 nm to not more than 560 nm, with the proviso that (.lambda..sub.G -.lambda..sub.-R) is not less than 5 nm.
In this approach, an interlayer effect donor layer for the red-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer is provided to obtain the foregoing interlayer effect. The sensitizing dye to be incorporated in the donor layer is designed for the-short wavelength side of the green-sensitive layer. However, it has been found that the sensitizing dye cannot be adsorbed by silver halide grains too strongly and thus can be desorbed therefrom when stored under high temperature and humidity conditions, making it impossible to obtain a sufficient color reproducibility.
On the other hand, JP-A-4-44028 discloses that specific sensitizing dyes can be advantageously used in admixture with the conventional sensitizing dyes taking into account the age stability. However, the spectral absorption obtained by this method is at a wavelength range longer than required. As a result, this method leaves something to be desired in obtaining a desirable color reproducibility.